Field note
Reading idle time before a festival weekend
· Desktop Canvascore
Before Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, or Merdeka travel peaks, fleets often add partners and hope density solves everything. Idle-time columns in the export then look alarming.
Idle is not one behaviour
Queue idle near known pickup nodes can be intentional coverage. Wander idle between mismatched corridors burns fuel and patience. App analytics that lump both into one “utilisation” figure push the wrong meeting agenda.
Festival prep checklist
- Compare idle location clusters with last year’s completed-trip heat for the same festival week.
- Protect a thin dedicated pool for airport or long-haul demand without emptying residential feeders.
- Cap how many unpaid wait minutes you tolerate at each node before restaging.
Peak Demand Mapping briefings exist for this exact calendar pressure: a sketch you can argue about on Tuesday, not a dashboard you stare at during the surge.